This picture is of my Great Grandmother Irene Callister (before she was a McCullough). She was about 18 years old in 1910.Life is full of contrasts! The following is from the "Life Story" that Marene Ebert put together about Irene. It shows a different side of her than this picture depicts.
“As a teenager around Halloween, Mother and her best friend would dress up in their fathers' pants (girls did not wear pants in those days) and after dark would run through the neighborhood and tip over all the ‘out houses’. She and her friend wore their fathers' pants on other occasions...Mother said that she and her friend learned to jump the six foot fences as fast and as well as any of the boys in the neighborhood and never did get caught. One night Mother was dressed in one of her father’s best suits and as she and her friend, also dressed in her father’s clothes, were walking down the hill, she saw her father coming home from work. He had got off the street car and was walking up the hill from South Temple. As he was going on a trip the next day, he had gone to the bank and had quite a bit of money on him. As he was walking up the hill, he saw these “two bums” (actually Mother and her friend) walking toward him. Thinking they were going to rob him, he gave them a shove, knocking them down into the mud as he ran past them. Later that evening, when Mother came home with his best suit on, dirty and torn, he was so glad that he had not hurt her, that he wasn’t even angry with her.”
Gerry McCullough Ebert
Irene's birthday is November 8th. She was born in 1892. It would have been incredible to know her from her "out house tipping" days to those that the following was said of her:
“I remember that three months before she died at the age of 84, she gave a book review to a group to which I was invited. She spoke for about 45-60 minutes, not using a note. She had a tremendous memory and a thirst for knowledge of things of worth. She was not interested in reading trivial things. She was a peacemaker. My father had many good qualities, but he also had a bad temper and would blow up often. My mother was never a doormat, but at the same time, she would never lower herself to shout or argue. I admired her for this and I’ve always wished I could be more like her. I loved to talk to her about the Gospel and the scriptures. I know of no woman and very few men as well read and versed in the scriptures as my mother.”
Beth McCullough Henderson
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Thank you for sharing. I will always treasure my own memories of this great woman. I wrote the following in my journal on July 20, 1976 after Grandma Irene passed away. I look forward to meeting her again some day:
"Just a word about today so that Marie and her brothers and sisters may know what a proud heritage they have. We went to Grandma McCullough’s funeral today and the Prophet Spencer W. Kimball and an Apostle Elder Delbert L. Stapley, both close friends of Grandma, spoke to us. They are truly good men but what they told of Grandma was so wonderful. She was truly a Latter Day Saint doing much good for the kingdom of Zion and was ready and deserving of her reward in Heaven. She wrote poems and stories and loved her family beyond measure. She represented her fellow man in Washington as a convention delegate and helped as a pink lady at the LDS hospital and more important still served as a guide on Temple Square for twenty years. She knew the scriptures so well and spent much time giving great speeches. She was a wonderful example and a sweet, kind woman. We all love her very much!
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